Indie Thinking: When Craft Makes Celebrity Optional
63% of this year’s Super Bowl ads featured celebrities — up from 34% just a decade ago. A single cameo now costs $2 million to…
Tag: #indiethinking
Indie Thinking: Tough Love as Strategy — The Conversation Most Agencies Skip With Founders
Roughly 90% of new CPG brands fail. In beverages, only 3% ever reach $10 million in revenue. Walk the floor at any Expo West or…
Agency Positioning: Being Known for Something Beats Known for Everything
Howard Moggs has heard it all. “We work with clients big and small, across all categories.” “We create breakthrough work.” “We’re big agency talent in…
Positioning Problem — When Your “Unique” Sounds Like Everyone Else
Saatchi and Saatchi, Publicis, ENGINE, and BUCK. He has sat on both sides of the pitch table — and he has seen firsthand how talented…
Employee Ownership Built This Agency — 111 Years Later, It’s Still the Foundation
Doe-Anderson CEO John Birnsteel on investing your own money, keeping Maker's Mark for 50 years and why the long view beats the quarterly panic
verb Left on a Friday and Was Fully Booked by Monday
Shannon Jones and Yadira Harrison join Christian Gani on the Year One show to talk about the realities of starting verb from scratch.
Super Bowl Advertisers Spent Up to $10M Per Spot. Here’s What Happened Next (Especially With Talent)
A talent strategist on the missing Gen Z play, the AI trust gap and why no one cast the next Walton Goggins
Beyond the Rankings: Super Bowl Ad Truths
By Monday morning, everyone will have the same Super Bowl ad rankings. USA Today’s Ad Meter will crown its winners, social media will have picked…
Don’t Treat People Like Efficiencies: A New Guide for Leaders
Ad Age named Doe-Anderson one of the best agency cultures in the country in 2025. Their CEO John Birnsteel has said that employee tenure at…
Year 1: verb
Shannon Jones and Yadira Harrison didn’t ease into agency ownership. They ended at their previous agency on a Friday, started verb on a Monday, and…
Vibe Marketing: Making the Intangible Tangible
Familiar Creatures faced one of marketing’s hardest problems with Crunch Fitness: “How do you make people FEEL a vibe through comms and advertising?” Research showed…
Alignment Over Ideas: Why the Best Campaigns Succeed | Red Door Interactive
Red Door Interactive analyzed their best-performing campaigns and found one commonality: alignment. Not brilliant ideas—alignment. Campaigns succeeded when teams were aligned, not when they had…
The CMO Role Didn’t Go Away. It Evolved Into 7 Species. Here’s How it Happened
Worldwide Partners' anonymous research with Monigle reveals how modern marketing leaders survive—and thrive—under corporate pressure through strat…
From 36 Years to Year 1: How Brownstein Group Became Born and Raised
Marc Brownstein hit reset after 36 years, turning Brownstein Group into Born and Raised—a creative studio built on instinct, speed, and a belief tha…
SuperHeroes’ Year 1 Lesson: Get Serious About Having Fun
The agency built 15 years of success on one question—how do we stay audacious while being responsible?
The Solo Founder Who Waited Until He Was Ready to Fly
Alex Goulart's Fire Kite launched without co-founders, investors, or a team—just 20 years of preparation and one client